Chapter
1
Earning the Right to Manage
The essence of good
management is letting people know
what you expect, inspecting what is done, and supporting those things that are done well.
--Zig Ziglar
Great managers hold people accountable for clearly agreed upon
standards, not unspoken expectations.
--Gene C. Mage
The Purpose of Managing
for High Performance
Pity the manager, so misunderstood.
Are managers bosses?
Are managers owners?
Or, as many employees believe, are they the dimwitted
“pointy haired boss” exemplified in Scott Adam’s Dilbertã comic strip?
What exactly is management anyway?
What does effective management look like, and
why is it so rare?
Why are workplaces with great managers so much
more fun, positive, and motivating places to work?
More importantly, how can ordinary managers do the things
that transform an ordinary organization into a great place to work?
I wrote
Managing
for High Performance to answer these
questions. Reading this book will equip you, the manager, with a critical
set of tools for getting high performance from your employees and superior results from your organization.
After studying management practices at some of the world’s
leading companies over the past five years, and personally deploying management training for one of
So if you or someone close to you would really like to put
the fun back into the work of management, join me for the next few minutes as we discover Managing
for High Performance.
The Manager’s Job
So
just what is your job as a manager?
A manager is an individual who takes
responsibility for the performance of
other people.
The manager usually does not own the business, but is hired
by the owners to get results.
The manager practices
stewardship, taking
care of something that belongs to someone else.
The owners set expectations and demand that the manager perform to mutually agreed-upon standards. Those
performance measures might be financial, such as revenues, gross margins, and earnings per share.
Those performance measures might be less tangible,
such as creating a certain image for the firm among customers and investors.
But regardless of the metrics, the job of the
manager is to deliver results to the owner.
To deliver those results, you as the manager have a set of
levers you can pull.
These levers are the tools in the manager’s toolbox. You
may hire employees who possess the background and personal traits to get results.
You might invest capital in research, equipment,
and acquisitions.
You could vary the marketing mix, optimizing
the product assortment, distribution channels, advertising campaign, and pricing strategy.
But you must use every resource available to
you to get results for the owners.
Importantly, virtually every civilized society demands that managers get those results using ethical practices. Those
ethical guidelines may or may not be legally required, but are generally agreed upon statements about conduct. The
most crucial of these ethical guardrails are integrity,
honesty, and 
fairness.
You can stop someone on the street of any city,
from
While you might get a certain amount of work done yourself,
or even champion several high profile initiatives, you cannot do all the actual work required to get positive results. You
must, first and foremost, set the conditions for individual employees to do their work.
You must set clear expectations, provide resources,
and eliminate barriers.
You must provide the consequences that reinforce
good results and helpful behaviors, and penalize poor results and counter-productive behaviors.
The Management Challenge
Unfortunately, too many managers are uncomfortable at best, and at worst clumsy, at managing the conditions and
consequences which lead to organizational performance.
When the individuals in an organization do not
perform to high standards, the business results inevitably fall short.
If the manager cannot coax high performance out
of the talent in his care, his business will under-perform the competition.
Underperforming businesses are characterized by a long list
of sub-standard outcomes, but here are a few of the most visible:
1. High
employee turnover
2. Low
employee morale
3. Missed
financial targets
4. Repeated
downsizing
5. Cost
reduction focus
6. Acquisition
driven growth
7. Incoherent
and/or inconsistent strategic decisions
8. Hope
in a heroic “savior” CEO
9. Hope
in a world-beating new product
Do you recognize any of those symptoms?
As W. B. Yeats wrote, “Though the leaves are
many, the root is one…”
All of these symptoms can be traced, in one form
or another, to poor
management practices.
Organizations often spend decades trying to treat
each of these symptoms while failing to address the root cause.
Various programs putting salve on the wounds
follow one after another, while employees become ever more cynical about the organization.
After a while, people no longer trust that the
management knows what they are doing.
Creating a Great Organization
I think anybody would like to join an organization that has
a fun work environment and gets superior results.
Interestingly, the organizations that put sound,
ethical, and consistent processes in place to get good results, are often the most fun places to be. Why? Because
people like
to work where they know what is expected
and have a fighting chance to succeed.
So in your organization, how will you know if you are winning? Your
organization or department must set its own “standards” that define what good performance looks like. Part
of the manager’s job is to identify her personal list of metrics, based upon what her bosses, and ultimately the
owners, demand.
So before you can begin to “manage” performance, you must
decide what “performance” looks like.
You must have good agreements with your superiors
about how results will be measured.
You must then get clear in your own mind what
you expect from your employees.
Then you communicate those expectations to the
people who will do the work.
A great manager holds people accountable for performing to
agreed-upon standards.
A great manager sets high standards, and expects
people to reach those standards.
A tyrant, on the other hand, focuses on being in control. The
tyrant has only vague, general notions about what he wants, and then punishes employees who fall short of his
unspoken
expectations. When the tyrant comes on the scene, high performing employees
will head for the door.
An excellent manager knows she cannot hold people accountable for that which they have not agreed to do. You
cannot follow up on that which you have not put into motion.
Before you can provide consequences, you must
first establish the conditions in which the employee can perform.
Before you can manage, you must do your own homework,
and earn the right to manage.
Employees
understand that high performance ought to naturally result in praise, recognition, and tangible rewards, and that
poor performance results in corrective measures.
The key, then, to a positive work environment,
is a system that provides employees with three critical elements in a consistent and ethical manner:
v Clear
expectations from the management as to what
constitutes good job performance.
v Conditions, including resources, time, work processes, and equipment, that
enable employees to do their job with excellence.
v Consequences that recognize and reward high performance, while correcting
and eliminating poor performance.
Management Must be a System
An effective management system is a series
of conversations between managers and employees
during the year. Some of these conversations are spontaneous as part of the
day-to-day work, while others are planned and structured to yield results.
The system will also provide checklists to ensure
thoroughness and forms for documenting what gets said.
These conversations occur in a definite sequence that enables
you to set expectations, conditions, and consequences in a fair and supportive way.
In the following chapters, you will read about
each element of a sound performance management system.
Tools are Not
Enough
Lots of organizations have systems for managing performance,
but few can truly say that these systems are consistently embraced and followed by managers and employees. A
system will work only if management fully believes in the guiding
principles that underlie effective management. Without
a commitment to this core set of ethical standards, the words of managing performance become nothing more than
a collection of manipulative techniques.
Summary:
Guiding Principles
for Managing Performance
We believe that:
1. You
can only get high performance when people are held accountable for achieving high
standards.
2. You
can only hold people accountable
if you first:
a. Set
clear expectations for what is expected;
b. Gain
agreement
from the employee to meet those expectations;
c. Set
clear measures for what constitutes high performance;
d. Provide
the conditions that enable the employee to perform, such as tools, resources,
and organization;
e. Provide
regular feedback on performance.
3. People
given clear expectations and regular feedback on performance will manage
themselves.
4. High
performance must be recognized and rewarded.
5. Poor
performance must be corrected.
a. Before we correct an employee we must first evaluate whether we,
as managers, have provided the conditions for that employee to succeed;
b. If
we have set the conditions, provided feedback,
and have allowed the employee time to respond, then we have the right to provide correction;
c. Poor
performance must not be tolerated indefinitely. Correcting
a non-performing employee is a process that has a definite ending point, either in improvement to acceptable performance,
or removal of the employee from the position.
Only when we embrace these core beliefs about effective management
and put these beliefs into practice, do we have the “right” to manage others.
Have you earned
the right to manage?
Take the following “pop quiz” and see how you
did.
Self Test:
Have
I Earned the Right to Manage?
v Have
I communicated clear expectations to every employee?
o Does
each of my employees have a job description?
o Does
each of my employees have an agreed-upon goal plan?
o Does
each of my employees know how he/she will be measured?
v Have
I measured their results and provided regular feedback?
o Have
I established performance metrics?
o Have
I established standards of performance?
o Have
I set up regular times to discuss job performance?
v Have
I established the conditions which will allow my employees to do excellent work?
o Do
my employees have the resources, equipment, space, and training to do their jobs?
o Do
my employees have the knowledge and skill to get the results I expect?
o Do
my employees have agreements with other departments who supply vital information or work components they will need
to get the results I expect?
If you
can answer an honest yes to each of these nine homework assignments, you have earned the right to manage.
If you have not put each of these principles into practice,
you must do them first before you can hold others accountable for their job performance. The
tools provided on the following pages will equip you to build a great place to work through your own effective
and ethical people management practices.
Let’s get started!
© 2002 Gene C. Mage. All
Rights Reserved.
Making it WorkTM
is a trademark of Gene C. Mage.